During 1980 we propose to: (a) Continue purification of the seminal protein that blocks calcium transport in spermatozoa and characterize the pure protein as to MW, amino acid composition, specificity for different ions and specificity for different cells and calcium carriers; (b) investigate the role of Ca2 ion in electron transport from cytosolic NADH to mitochondrial NAD, and the role that gluconeogenic hormones play in this process; (c) continue to investigate the function of ferroactivator protein in those cells (heart, erythrocytes, testes) that have no phosphopyruvate carboxykinase, as well as continue efforts to obtain the erythrocyte ferroactivator in pure form and to characterize its prosthetic group; (d) initiate a synthetic program to make picolinic acid derivatives with substituents similar to those occurring in a toxic antibiotic that is a powerful inhibitor of phosphopyruvate carboxykinase since compounds of this type conceivably could be useful as an adjuvant to insulin in treating diabetes; and (e) continue a program recently initiated to study the biochemical basis of the genetic alteration that is responsible for certain types of obesity in experimental animals in the hope that this information can be extended to humans.